


A Secret

by CatelynMay, zaboraviti



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Au of sorts, F/M, Fix-It, Post 2x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 17:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12089550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatelynMay/pseuds/CatelynMay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaboraviti/pseuds/zaboraviti
Summary: Lady Portman visits her friend at Brocket Hall and finds out that things aren't exactly what they seem to be. A fix-it for 2x03. Because we can.





	A Secret

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Секрет](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/322674) by Catelyn M. 



© [Lady Disdain](https://ladydisdainblog.tumblr.com/)

Emma Portman lingered by the impressive glass structure, within the walls of which Lord Melbourne had been painstakingly and carefully raising his personal Eden, year after year. The glasshouses of Brocket Hall were a perfect place for the former Prime Minister to apply his gift for aesthetics and collecting rare exquisite beauty.  
  
How sad that her friend could no longer give as much time to his pet project as before. At this thought, the Queen’s lady felt her heart constrict with ache. It would take her all her composure to look at his face worn by illness without bursting into tears. How would she find him today?  
  
Lady Portman was already heading for the front door of the house when she caught a glimpse of some movement behind the glass wall. Taking a closer look, Emma made out a tall figure clad in a white shirt, sleeves considerately rolled up.   
  
William, in the glasshouses again, so soon? After telling her that the doctor had forbidden him from straining himself, much less working in such heat!  
  
And yet, the master of Brocket Hall did not seem exhausted. She could bet anything that Melbourne, scurrying busily among the pots with orchids, looked even more chipper than he had during his premiership.   
  
Shocked, confused and genuinely worried, Emma was mentally going through all possible explanations for such a striking change, for such a miraculous transformation of a man who had had trouble leaving his house only a week previously.  
  
She spun around and proceeded determinedly inside the glasshouse, where the unsuspecting noble gardener was absorbed with replanting a rare specimen of some fastidious plant. The heat under the glass dome was rather stifling, and Emma thought that a prolonged stay here could make even a healthy man feel ill.  
  
She stopped a few steps short of him, still perplexed. William’s movements were confident and precise, his complexion quite fresh, his face expressive as ever. Emma deliberately coughed, stepping from behind a large sprawling palm tree, whose leaves had allowed her to stay unnoticed for some time.  
  
William turned to the sound and saw her, meeting her eyes with a look of utter dismay, as if he were a thief, caught red-handed and unable to decide on the route of escape. But he hadn’t spent so many years fiercely debating with the Tories for nothing—it didn’t take him long to get his emotions under control.  
  
“Emma? What a nice surprise. It’s good to see you,” he said softly, so softly, as if speech took an effort, his seemingly awkward hands cautiously putting down the gardening tools.  
  
His face immediately became sallow and dispirited and weary, his lips a sad thin line, his shoulders even slumped a little. The performance only made Lady Portman feet more uncomfortable. Not a minute had passed since she beheld a completely different picture. Was this some kind of game?  
  
“I’m happy to see you are feeling much better.”  
  
“I’m afraid you are too generous in your appraisal of my doctor’s talents,” Melbourne said in the same hushed tone, the corners of his lips sorrowfully curled upwards. “Even those new friends of mine are incapable of miracles…”  
  
“New friends of yours?” Emma asked.  
  
“Yes, leeches, my new treatment. They do make me feel better occasionally,” he answered, unperturbed.  
  
“Is today one of such days?”  
  
“Yes, today is one of such days indeed, however, I fatigue easily. We ought to go inside the house so that I could get back into my favorite chair. I don’t leave it often lately, I fear.”  
  
“Well, then this is exactly what we are going to do. Still, you shouldn’t overstrain yourself, much less do so breathing this sultry air.”  
  
“This is my personal Paradise, Emma, and I enjoy it while I’m alive. Who can tell if I will go there in the future?”  
  
“Oh, William, you deserve sainthood, but don’t you dare elaborate on the subject. I am not going to encourage this conversation.”  
  
“Very well. In that case, we will have tea and you will tell me the news of the court,” Melbourne said in reconciliation.  
  
As she was leaving the glasshouse escorted by its thoughtful owner and keeper, Emma’s gaze unwittingly fell on the small elegant chair with a woven seat; lying on its edge was something that looked completely out of place with the rest of the setting, and she could see the lace and fine ribbons very clearly. Once out in the open air, the Queen’s lady asked herself if it had been an optical illusion caused by the humid heat, or if the dainty little thing was indeed a lady’s stocking garter.  
  
There was nobody by the entrance of the glasshouse, none of the servants who usually looked after their master during his prolonged illness. This struck another warning note with Emma, who suddenly realized that her leg was being pulled, and rather expertly at that. Walking into the drawing room, Lady Portman was adamant to bring her old friend to light and find out what had possessed him to put on the show that distressed the Queen and herself a great deal.   
  
They settled in opposite chairs. Emma did not beat around the bush.  
  
“I have always known, William, that you are a man of many talents but never suspected acting to be one of them.”  
  
“Emma…” he cut himself off, realizing that his sagacious friend had already uncovered his secret and further explanation would be unnecessary.  
  
“I saw you in the glasshouse when I arrived, you looked the same as before, full of life and remarkably inspired.”  
  
“I should have been more careful. I’m lucky my visitor was you and not somebody else.”  
  
“But why, William? Why this masquerade?”  
  
He let out a loud sigh.  
  
“For her safety, Emma.”  
  
“Dear Lord, are you talking about our Queen?”  
  
“Exactly. I must not allow myself such carelessness as today, or we both are ruined.”  
  
Suddenly, as though at a commanding wave of an invisible hand, all events of the past few months formed a neat logical pattern in Emma’s head: the Queen’s sudden urge to visit her old friend and mentor at his estate, the inappropriately long conversation in the glasshouse, the desperate glint in the cerulean blue of the august eyes, Prince Albert’s sudden fits of spleen, the luxurious ball and the invitation for the former Prime Minister, the too frequent visits to Brocket Hall under the pretense of dear Lord M’s ill health…  
  
“And that’s why you-“  
  
“Yes, so that everybody, Prince included, thought me but an old ruin, whose lot in life is to have leeches and potions for company. Anyway, I managed to put on a convincing act in the Parliament building. I suppose my apathetic look shocked Albert more than the talk of my failing health.”  
  
Emma helplessly shook her head.  
  
“But this is a horrible, monstrous undertaking, William. What do you two intend to do next?  
  
“Love…” Lord Melbourne answered after a pause, with desperate resolve in his voice, shedding the last remnants of faux frailty  
  
Emma asked no more questions and offered no advice. She glanced into his changed eyes, admiring the soft emerald glow that filled them now as it had in the years of their so distant youth.  
  
Then she said goodbye, climbed into her carriage and spend the entire trip back to the palace lost in uneasy thoughts, a smile of the most sincere joy only a close and loyal friend can feel never leaving her face.  
  
  
***  
  
The Queen entered the room quietly, on tiptoe, and carefully closed the door after making sure no one could overhear them. True to his habit, William had fallen asleep in his chair. He had to spend a lot of time sitting in that chair now, pretending to a lonely venerable old man broken by his affliction, as hard as many found that to believe. He worked on his guise with such earnestness and diligence that all doubts were soon assuaged and the Queen was free to visit her former Prime Minister in Brocket Hall quite frequently without causing gossip in her entourage.  
  
The patter of small delicate feet on the old parquet floor did not escape Melbourne’s sharp hearing but he kept his eyes shut, allowing her to sink on his lap, slender fingers tracing his cheekbones, his jawline, the curve of his lips… No, never had he succeeded in bearing this sweet torture. He pulled her closer and kissed the soft willing lips, ecstatic and insatiable, until she was nothing but a ball of burning, pressing desire, trying to divest him of his clothes. But William was patient as ever, teaching his beloved to restrain her gushing passion, to preserve it, to let it grow inside until it peaked and overflowed, making body and soul sing in unison.  
  
After they both climaxed, she fell quiet on his chest, still shivering from pleasure. He caressed her slight shoulders with his fingertips, leaving feather-light kisses on the soft porcelain-line skin.  
  
At the desk, right in front of them, stood the cage with the mechanical bird of paradise, a masterpiece forged by skillful hands that had tried in vain to breathe life into a piece of metal. The bird would never sing again at anyone’s will, the steel spring inside it had cracked and burst, stopping hundreds of invisible gears for good. Victoria would never be a puppet again, crushing her own interests and desires to please others; he didn’t want to see her tears ever again, her tears, her desolate drawn face, the nervous wringing of her hands. She deserved all joy and delights of love, she was born to be more than a queen, more than a wife and mother, an example for the nation, she was born to be an ordinary woman, the one, for whom his heart keeps beating and burning with tenderness.  
  
“Why do you still keep it here, Lord M? It’s broken,” Victoria said all of a sudden, nodding at her gift.   
  
“It’s a reminder, my love.”  
  
“Of what?”  
  
“A reminder that no one’s happiness can be put together, assembled even by the most precise drawings, and that a pure and loving heart once given to you whole and without reservation cannot be turned away by a turn of a key.”  
  
“You could not help it then, we had no choice. Why all this torment, when I am here, with you?”  
  
“I have so much more to learn from you still, ma’am,” Melbourne smiled.  
  
“Learn, from me? What?”   
  
“At the very least—your ability to see the bright side of all things. Well, let us put philosophical musings away, shall we? Tell me instead what excuse for this trip you are going to offer at the palace.”  
  
The Queen gave him a conspiratorial smile back.  
  
“I will tell them you remain very ill and in need of my constant attentions.”  
  
“In that case, I do not care for healing,” he whispered, taking possession of her lips yet again, melting in this bliss, so disastrous, so criminal, so hard-earned and so right.


End file.
